Search results for "American business"

Frank W. Taussig and Carl S. Joslyn on the Social Origins of American Business Leaders: A Chapter in the History of Social Science at Harvard

2019

In their 1932 volume "American Business Leaders: A Study in Social Origins and Social Stratification," Frank W. Taussig and Carl S Joslyn, then a young Harvard graduate, argued that success in business depended more on innate superiority than on other environmental factors such as financial aid, influential connections, and formal education. The aim of this paper is to analyze the main contentions of Taussig and Joslyn, as well the intellectual genesis of, and the general reactions to, this controversial volume. Although our main focus is on Taussig and Joslyn, other figures, all directly affiliated with Harvard, will play a decisive role in our narrative—the economist Thomas Nixon Carver, …